In furnaces used throughout the metallurgical and related industries to heat a slab, billet, bloom or other raw steel shape, a typical furnace includes a complex network of vertical and horizontal water-cooled pipes which support an additional network of horizontal water-cooled skid rails along which the slabs, billets, blooms, or other raw steel shapes are pushed or walked through the furnace. The metallurgical furnace is an open system; that is, heat which is transferred to the metal pipe network is conducted by the flowing water in the pipes to a point outside the furnace and is not recoverable. Accordingly, vast amounts of heat losses occur and correspondingly unnecessary amounts of energy are expended to replace the heat loss as a result of the heat transfer into the water-cooled pipe network. For example, as much as thirty to thirty-five percent of the total heat supplied to a metallurgical furnace by the combustion of fuels is lost in an infrastructure of uninsulated skid pipes and the supporting pipe network. Hence, the more effective the insulator or refractory around the pipe network, the more efficient and the more economical is the furnace to operate.
To date, various types of refractory materials have been utilized in order to reduce the amount of heat loss from the furnace through the water-cooled pipe infrastructure. The use of pre-fired or chemically bonded refractory materials which are welded, studded, wired, clipped or anchored with interlocking anchor straps is well known. The use of welds, studs, wires and the like requires large expenditures of labor and time to strip the pipe and secure an additional refractory as a replacement. Moreover, refractory concretes have even been formed in place around the pipe surfaces which are supported by any number and type of metallic anchors welded to the pipe surface. Almost without exception these forms of insulation have failed within a relatively short period of operation because of the inherent friability and susceptibility to fracture of the heavy, brittle fired ceramic refractory materials. As the metallic shape is moved along the metal skid rail, significant vibration and flexion of the water-cooled pipe infrastructure occur which are in turn transmitted into the insulators. Consequently, the high temperature of the furnace and the flexion and vibrations within the pipe causes failure of the welded mesh and welded studs which support the insulator, thereby causing early failure of the insulator which falls to the furnace floor.